noun: the study of fake patriotism

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We are about to launch into a new episode of “He Said, He Said,” as deep thinking pundits and talking heads attempt to decide whether to believe the word of President of the United States Donald Trump or that of former Director of the FBI James Comey.

The latter is a distinguished law enforcement professional who apparently takes extensive notes to make sure he remembers the facts of every encounter correctly. The former changes his stories faster than mothers change their babies’ diapers.

As a public service to those who might be weighing the question of which of these men to believe, I herewith provide a short list of recent press articles that discuss the truthfulness propensities of each. Continue reading →

Recently, there has been a lot of commentary (examples here and here) and quite a bit of hand-wringing about the fact that Trump voters seem to be sticking by him, despite his epic failure after 100 days to provide anything close to a legislative win, any tangible progress on any of his signature campaign promises, or indeed, any tangible evidence that he has the slightest idea what he is doing.

Pollsters and pundits seem to be interpreting these findings as a kind of insane loyalty to a man who, by every behavioral indication, has already sold out his electoral constituency, with absolutely no remorse – or perhaps even awareness – about doing so. Continue reading →

In mid-December, I predicted that Congressional Republicans would continue to put up with the embarrassment of Donald Trump until they got the two things they cared about most: a pro-business, anti-regulation Supreme Court pick and another massive tax cut for their super-rich benefactors. Faced with daily reminders of Trump’s abject unfitness for the Presidency, they appeared to be hanging on to the 2012 guidance of their spiritual leader Grover Nordquist: Continue reading →

Andrew published a brilliant “diary” in New York Magazine this morning that I hope gets read far and wide. It is a meditation on how it feels to watch a crazy person close up, when every fiber of your rational being wants to scream “he can’t really be crazy, there must be some strategy behind his apparent craziness.” You keep grasping at straws that will allow you to wiggle out from under the “crazy” explanation, but you just can’t find one. Yet your mind still rebels from the necessary conclusion. And this produces a kind physical sickness, a mental miasma you just can’t shake. And that’s exactly where so many of us are today. And Andrew captures all this beautifully. Continue reading →

Republicans have always been good at discipline. Right now they are being assaulted by an angry public on all sides and their only defensive strategy is to huddle together and wait for the storm to blow over. They allowed Collins and Murkowski to have their little rebellion, because they knew they could absorb it. But the next defector would have mattered greatly. And they kept their gang in line. Continue reading →

On this Martin Luther King Day, everyone should understand why Representative John Lewis is called “the conscience of the Congress.” He is more than just a United States Representative, he is one of the last remaining representatives of a generation of Americans, black and white, who confronted the injustice and bigotry of racial discrimination in the 1960s, when the engines of government would not. Continue reading →

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This blog represents the personal views and opinions of its author. No organizations, companies, agencies, or institutions are implicated in what is expressed here. Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. Patrioptics.